Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and David Lidington(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
Russia has certainly suffered heavily as a result of the imposition of sanctions in the way that my right hon. Friend describes. We have seen a flight of capital out of Russia, as well as the precipitate fall in the value of the rouble. I hope that the Russian leadership will accept that it is in the interests of the Russian people to implement the Minsk agreement with Ukraine in full and, in particular, to return to Ukraine control of her sovereign borders.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Further to the question from the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway), world leaders rightly made their views known about the Russian actions in Ukraine at the recent G20 summit in Australia. Will the Minister say more about the effect that he thinks the sanctions and the recent fall in the oil price are having on Russia and, in particular, whether he believes that the combined effect is producing a change in Russian attitudes towards fostering nationalism in Ukraine and possibly in other countries with Russian-speaking minorities?
Mr Lidington
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s implicit point that we are concerned not just about Ukraine, but about the doctrine of a right to intervene in support of Russian speakers anywhere in the world. The answer to his question is that, sadly, we are not yet seeing a return to serious talks and the implementation of the Minsk peace agreement by the Russian leadership, but the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy, coupled with the decline in oil prices, is catastrophic. It is in the interests of the Russian people that we see a change.
European Council
Debate between Pat McFadden and David Lidington(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Lidington
I take my hon. Friend’s description of me as a compliment, though I recall that Dr Johnson described a lexicographer as “a harmless drudge”—if I remember the quote from his dictionary accurately.
The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is that we must again go back to the distinction between a policy that is directed by and owned by the EU collectively and its institutions, which we do not have, and a broad policy on security and defence that rests on free co-operation between willing national Governments working together so that their capabilities complement one another, and working in partnership particularly with NATO but with other partners around the world as well. There is nothing to fear from the latter version of the common security and defence policy, and that is the version embodied in the European Council conclusions.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
In advance of the summit, the Prime Minister made great play of new rules regarding access to benefits for EU migrant workers. What proportion of claimants for working-age benefits are made up of EU migrant workers?
Mr Lidington
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said in this House before, one of the difficulties we have had is that the previous Government chose not to collect statistics for social security benefits categorised by nationality of claimants. He and his team at the DWP are now changing that, and I am sure that they will produce those figures in due course, but they do not exist for the period of years that the right hon. Gentleman wants, because his Government did not bother to collect them.